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TB, Idk. I guess semantically that could be argued to be true ALWAYS. What is your definition of FREE.

As far as who pays, I pay a BUNCH of school taxes, and have no kids. There are two simple ways of looking at that.

I pay you benefit. Sort of an entitlement, short sighted view.
I pay we all benefit. I like this better. Clearly a better educated society benefits me and everyone. Lot cheaper than housing people in jails, as one example of benefit.

In the last 4 years I've watched solar panels prices do what flat panel TVs have done, and computers before them. Drop drop drop. Without the initial incentives those early adopters would not have built the market. Now incentives are so small, some don't bother.

Solar wil distribute production and produce during peak, two things that significantly reduce pressure to increase costly infrastructure. There are many serious long term cost avoidance benefits.

I think EE incentives are the reason I know building science, and anicdotally know solar and wind. They are the reason we've seen huge change in the approach to sizing, and see discussion of looking comprehensively at the home when replacing equipment. This information is being injected into this industry in a way that would never have happened without incentives.

So yes, you pay and if you don't get panels, you don't benefit.

-or-

You pay, we all benefit. How do you look at things, short or long view?

AMD; really? No investments have any guarantees? Hmmm.

Why should we have accountability? Because we can. The higher confidence you have in a return, the more likely you are to invest.

If you know anything about financial markets, cost of financing is a function of risk. If we can squeeze risk out of this work, and build consumer confidence, it could go ballistic. Banks will line up to finance, leasing might even occur, and homeowners will make decisions of affordability based on net cost.

If they do that today, and experience .38 realization, they could be financially hurt. Net cost decisions in the current market is risky business.

I think some would prefer that more moeny be left in the hands of private investors, and venture capitalists and angel capital funding can subsidize these technologies.

But I tend to agree, throughout history, most cutting edge technology (usually from the military) usually required government of wealthy patron/landowner (arguably a form of government in terms of power and influence and how their gain their wealth). Without deep pockets that are not expecting a return on their investment or a product that is immediately marketable, researchers, inventors, scientists can take risks, try wild concepts and advance technology. There are few technologies used today that would have been possible from solely private investment soruces. Many of these ideas were so wild, that an private invester woudl think they were insane.

There are exceptions. R&D within companies (a "sunken cost" without a clear payback) have invented many technologies.

How about some examples:

1) Aircraft - initiall private investment, but quickly the military stepped in and funded all major breakthroughs after that.
2) Plastics - composits - Dow & Dupont were doing research, but the first major applications were for the military, later adopted for consumer markets.
3) Transportation - Rail required government aide and without it, America would not have spread out west so rapidly and much of the West coast might not belong to the USA as a result. Hard ot lay clear claim to a territory without occupying it.
4) Military. I suppose this is obvious. But government investment has a real impact on how a country emerges as a empire. There were those that felt that raising taxes for a strong Navy wasn't nesseary and we should be isolationists. We wouldn't have defeated Spain without it. And would have been crushed by Japan as well. From an R&D perspective, we started WWII with far inferior equipment and tehnology to what Japan or Germany had and only late in the war equalled and passed them.

It makes sense for governments to subsidize r&d, but not the deployment of immature technologies.

It does if the government decides it's in the people's interest to advance that technology. With the rate of fossil fuel use on this continent, it's not such a bad idea to combine various conservation measures with alternative production methods. Good for the economy, too. Most of that money makes it back into the local economy where it gets re-taxed to death anyway.

Well, I finally checked out the show and they didn't even mention the solar but my piping was still there. The producers didn't want to talk to me about paying for a re-install or where the extra parts went. Oh well.......

Well, I finally checked out the show and they didn't even mention the solar but my piping was still there. The producers didn't want to talk to me about paying for a re-install or where the extra parts went. Oh well.......

Mike, based on what I know, you did the install and did it well. You got paid for it (I hope ). They damaged it. The guy who "hired" them is on the hook for the reinstall or missing parts - i.e. the HO. It's up to him whether he wants to go after them for the costs. Could be an extra payday for you

It was working well and I can understand that it didn't fit into the show script as the WHOLE house was basically a disaster and the home owners were probable overwhelmed by the free reno. My system was far from their minds. The HO was hasn't made up his mind about it as there is no room anymore in the nice basement for the tank.